


Did You Call Me From A Seance? You Were From A Past Life

by teenuviel1227



Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Adventures, Fantasy, Finding each other again, Fluff, M/M, Past Lives, Reincarnation, Urban Fantasy, a lot of love, soft smut but nothing too explicit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-28 06:28:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18750889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teenuviel1227/pseuds/teenuviel1227
Summary: The first time Jae sees Brian again, he just knows.





	Did You Call Me From A Seance? You Were From A Past Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kangdanna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangdanna/gifts).



> Sorry I've been away so long.

The first time Jae lays eyes on Brian there’s a sharp pain in his left arm like pushing a spindle through skin. The entire room is a bright, pulsing violet. Electropop pounds through the speakers, the bass catching on her pulse. Jae spots Kiki across the dancefloor: his hair cut short, forming a small curl where it's drenched with sweat and pasted to his forehead, the fuzz of the shaved back smooth across his nape. His top is long-sleeved silk, unbuttoned to the fourth, showing off the strong line from the hollow of his throat down to where the landscape of his chest begins and when the dark green of it catches the light, it turns almost silver. Jae feels like he’s going to be sick. There are bright spots in his vision. An overwhelming sense of vertigo tugs at the edges of the room and suddenly everything goes slick like the DJ booth could melt into the restrooms into the bar. The iridescent blue vodka quivers in its glass and the last thing Jae sees is the liquid licking against the rim, a pool of brightness that spills, spills, spills as the light drains out of the room and everything goes black.    
  


A single note sings steel leaving scabbard as the man in the emerald green robes swings his sword, its point stopping just short of the approaching man’s throat. His sleeve shifts as he draws his weapon: from between satin and skin peeks the white lotus flower tattoo of those sworn to protect the dragon of the south and the royal family who serves it, the pale tail snaking around his wrist.

He presses the point against the stranger’s skin and the tattoo glows an opalescent violent.

“Who are you and what are you doing in these halls?”

Above the ivory palace shaped like a dragon’s eye, its roof domed and hooded with marble, the moon hangs like a mirror dipped in silver, still dripping: round, iridescent, the clouds around it skewed somehow—ghostly. 

His heart pounds in his chest as the other man opens his mouth to speak.

_ How much blood needs to be shed before all of this stops? _

His arm aches but he holds the sword still, steady. He hasn’t slept in what feels like years. It hasn’t been an option. Or at least not for him—not with the rumors that have been moving through the city streets like blood pulsing from an open vein: something about the king, about his new adviser, about the dragon, unseen for nearly a fortnight.

Wind whistles through the open hallways, the ivory halls flickering as the dragon’s breath lamps shudder.

“It’s me, you idiot—”

He heaves a sigh of relief as the man throws back his hood and he sees his friend step out of the shadows, his hazel eyes wide with worry, the small scar that cuts across his left eyebrow pale like as the crescent of a fingernail. His hair is shaved close, his hands covered in soot.

“—well, thank the four goddamn dragons you’re here. It’s about time. You should change your name from Flit to Crawl. What took you so long? Last time I checked Nak was still within this kingdom or has a quake split open the earth—”

“I couldn’t come straightaway.” Flit explains. “They’ve put men outside my shop. Rumor has it the city watch has turned and if I’ve learned anything over the past few moons, it’s that rumors more often than not have more truth to them than we think. I took the long way: through the hollow woods and across the river Flan. I saw some of the guards burning what looked like the ivory ropes—”

The Captain’s eyes widen at that.

“—that’s treason.”

Flit nods.

“Treason is a weak word for what that means, Kang.”

There’s a rustling sound as the wind shifts in the trees. Is it the wind? Or another assassin? Another spy, another shadow-goblin wielding a dagger set for the Crown Prince’s throat? Flit draws his gun, fingers slipping into the small pouch of silver bullets tied to his belt. He lifts a match to his teeth, ready to load and fire in case of trouble.

The sound stops.

_ Just the wind? _

“—not here. Let’s talk inside.”

Kang presses a hand to the ivory and locks on the inside turn, the sound of stone being pulled from steel loud in the quiet night. He pushes the heavy, marble doors open and they slip into the chamber beyond. Once inside, he re-sets the locks: sliding each one into place and then checking and re-checking both mechanism and charm, material and magic, feeling the magic sewn into each groove and gear, making sure it will hold.

Once satisfied, he nods and they walk through the anteroom, into the inner chamber where the prince sits at his study table, all of the books closed for once, the inkwells covered. He’s watching the trees outside his window move. His hair is the pale lavender of the royal family, the bone-white dragon clasp holding it in place atop his head.

Kang and Flit bow low, touching their foreheads to the marble floor.

“Flit has arrived, Your Highness.”

“I hate when you guys do that.” He takes a sip of the liquor in his cup. “Sit down.”

Kang and Flit glance at each other and grin, take a seat at the table.

“Sorry to interrupt your tree-viewing,” Kang says, reaching for the clear decanter filled with liquor, pouring it into three small cups for them. “But Flit’s got the guns and horses saddled and ready. We just need you to change into the guard’s uniform and we can—”

“—Kang,” the prince says, his voice soft, resigned. “I’m going to die here.”

“With all due respect, Ji, I didn’t just get you any ordinary guns,” Flit says pointedly. “These are top-notch tiger’s tooth pistols hewn from the tooth of Old Sheer herself.”

“You know tiger’s tooth is made from quartz, right?” Kang raises an eyebrow. “And Old Sheer is so old her fangs are blunt.”

Flit rolls his eyes. “I was trying to be helpful but thanks for ruining it. I appreciate that.”

The prince shakes his head.

“They killed the dragon.”

Kang frowns, glancing at Flit.

“Don’t let rumors bother you. Nothing’s been confirmed, there’s still been smoke billowing from the Sleeping Sept. The lamps still burn. It’s probably just more scare tactics from Gam and his band of idiots, just—”

“—a band of idiots that’s managed to lock me out of my father’s palace,” the prince says, putting the glass down hard on the table. “A band of idiots who’ve managed to turn my five-fanged general, my esteemed sorcerer, the man who won the battle of the Shin Pass into a shuddering sack of nerves who can’t lay still at night long enough to—”

“—Ji, please—” Kang’s voice is softer now, exhaustion taking root in its depth, cracking on the Crown Prince’s name. “I’m handling it. I don’t want you to worry—”

“—I thought you’d learn by now to stop treating me like a child,” Ji says, meeting Kang’s gaze. “If the dragon is dead, then my father is dead and I will die soon. I won’t make it past the border.”

“I told you we shouldn’t have bound you to it yet,” Kang says, his hand tightening around his glass.

“I thought I was saving my father.”

“You were walking into a trap.”

“Wake up, Kang! All of it was a trap—”

Kang feels it a split-second before the glass shatters: the enchantment breaks and the window behind them rains glass.

Flit is on his feet at once, guns out, the match between his lips lit, glass cutting as he shoots at the shadows that come tearing through the window. He expects goblins but they get something else: a shadow longer, more a sense of absence than the color of anything.

Flit glances at Kang who is standing in front of the prince, sword drawn, a streak of blood running down his cheek.

“What in the four heavens—” Flit loads another bullet, spitting out what remains of the match as the next ember lights.

They look at what stands before them. The shadow is enormous, the size of a dragon if it were made of ink, pulling itself through the darkness in the room like thread too thick for its needle.

“You were wrong, Ji. The dragon isn’t dead,” Kang says. “This is worse. Blood magic—siphoning a soul out of its vessel and letting it roam wild, hungry for itself.” He glances at Ji. “If your father is dead, the only part of itself left is you. I know you’re determined to die or something but I can’t do this without you.”

Ji nods, knows what Kang wants to do without him saying it. They’d done it a million times before. He slips the needle-like lock from the ceramic clasp, his hair falling to his shoulders like opalescent water, and draws its sharp surface over the palm of his hand. Kang nods, reaches his arm out.

Ji closes his eyes, draws his palm slowly from Kang’s elbow to his wrist. The blood touches Kang’s tattoo and it glows the brightest violet. With a flick of his wrist, he spills light from the lotus flower, draws a semi-circle of protection around them: a circumference of light encasing them in brightness.

The dragon’s soul flickers, moving back like water meeting the sudden air of a trench.

“What now?” Flit asks, nodding toward the door. “Do we run?”

“No.” Kang takes a dagger from where it’s tied to his belt and drags it across his palm. “We have to put that thing back in its body.”

He presses his palm to Ji’s forehead and the birthmark shaped like a teardrop comes to life, opening like a dragon’s eye, red as a blood moon.

“Is it far?”

“It’s cold,” Ji says, seeing with his soul, scrying his land for the scent of home. “They’ve left it in the sept. There’s still a little light left in it. We’ll make it if we act fast—”

“—it’s too far—”

Ji’s eyes fly open as he feels it: a rip, like a stitch in a wound being pulled out by tossing one too many times in bed, the ghost of pain running through a fever dream.

“—no—”

Terror shoots through Ji at the sight of Kang with his eyes closed, his hand outside the orb, whistling what Ji knows is a dragon summon, using himself as bait.

“—Kang!” Ji’s voice is high-pitched with terror. “What do you think you’re doing—”

The darkness moves toward them like tar in a tunnel: at once too slow and sticky, too slick and quick.

“—I’m unbinding you from the dragon,” Kang says softly, his sword drawing runes in the sand, the blood flowing from his wound down beyond the border of light. “And offering it a cheap replacement. A counterfeit. It’s hungry and it can smell your blood. At this point it’ll eat anything.”

“Don’t you dare.” Ji pulls him back, tugging at his robes the way he has so many nights to satisfy his whims, to sate the hunger that spread in both of them like wildfire—but this time, Kang doesn’t acquiesce, doesn’t let Ji undo him. He holds his ground, eyes looking into the darkness.

“One more thing. I need you to cut me from you,” Kang says, his imperative soft, tender. “You have to or my soul will try and follow you and with me, the monster.”

“Don’t talk to me like you’re dying—”

“—cut me loose now or I’ll do it myself.” Kang’s hand tightens around the hilt of  his sword. “And that will hurt infinitely more.”

Ji feels the tears stream hot down his face as he takes the sword.

“I hate you.”

Kang tugs on Ji’s robe, kisses the corner of his mouth.

“Do it for me.”

Ji takes Kang’s sword, draws the tip across their mingled blood and then moves it twice in figure-eights between them. He strikes the crux and the strings appear: between them, a glowing web of a thousand threads, their lives intertwined. One for every year spent together, the longest one glowing brighter than the rest—the year they were married, nearly a century ago.

Kang remembers it like it was yesterday: Spring, the blood blossoms dotting the sky as they flew, star-shaped across the courtyard. Ji in his royal blue wedding robes, a phoenix emblazoned on the front, Kang waiting for him at the top of the stairs, uncomfortable in the ceremonial robes but glad to be wearing them nonetheless. Leading the ceremony, is Ji’s father, the King, the Ivory Dragon standing behind him, its long body coiled light, resting on air as it offers a sinew of its long life to thread their lives together, the string drifting out of its mouth slow, sure, latching itself onto Kang’s sword. Kang and Ji dripping their blood into the valise before the King took Kang’s sword and drew the figures: once in water and blood, once on the earth.

_ You may thread the needle _ .  _ May you bind it tight. _

Ji raises the sword, aiming true and then cutting across the main thread, clean. He falls to the ground, pain coursing through him as though grief were a part of him, beating somewhere in his body. One pain soon replaces another.

Kang screams, his voice filling the entire room. The darkness laps at Kang’s hand like a kitten at milk—and then darkness, all the light going out as if the moon itself has been snuffed from the sky.

Flit acts fast: pulls Ji to his feet and runs, runs, runs the way that he came. 

 

Jae wakes up and for a moment the loss of him is new again, that needling piercing through him, his entire body alight with pain. And then he realizes that his hand is on something solid: the cold, unlit square tile of the dance floor. He's lying on one of the low couches by the dance floor, someone’s jacket tucked under his head. The room is quiet, the lights turned off, sunlight coming in through the far window. Outside, there’s the sound of cars driving by.  _ Fuck. Fuck, I fucking fainted.  _ H e checks himself for anything broken, sighs with relief as he sees his purse pressed between his side and the sofa. He opens it and counts his belongings: wallet, keys, phone. 

“It’s all there. I didn’t rob you or anything if that’s what you’re worried about. And instead of Inspector Gadgeting your way through this morning, you could probably just thank me.”

Jae frowns, looks up to see the man from last night walking toward her, now changed out of the green polo and into loose jeans and a ratty old shirt. Broad shoulders, big smile, eyes that make Jae want to pass out again. He puts a cup of coffee down on the low coffee table with a plate of cereal, no milk.

“Sorry, it’s all I have.” 

Jae blinks, studies the crease between the brows, the shape of the front teeth, the dimples in his cheeks, the way he holds himself: as if about to walk into battle at any moment.

There's a small movement from the corner of the room and the sound of a cocktail mixer landing on the floor. The man sighs and walks behind the bar to come back with a white cat, a small scar on its browbone. 

"Little monster. You'd destroy everything if you could, huh?"

The cat licks its paws and the man softly ruffles the fur behind its ears.

 "Sorry. This is my cat, Flit, but I like to call him Sungjin." The man laughs a laugh so wide, so broad it feels like an embrace. 

Jae can't help but smile. "How do you even get Sungjin from Flit?"

"It's the opposite, actually. I adopted Sungjin from a friend and he told me Sungjin means "Sung" or  _finished, completed,_ but when I researched it actually meant  _planets and stars_ and "Jin" means tremor. So his first nickname was actually The Destroyer but it ended up being Flit because he's so damn fast." 

Jae lets out a laugh, but tears start to brim over his eyes.

_ It’s you. _


End file.
